The Kernodle family of Kansas City area were heavily involved in various racist or extreme right organizations including Minutemen, White Citizens Councils, and John Birch Society. This FBI file (67 pages) contains cross-references about both Paul and James Kernodle.
James Kernodle was the first President of the Kansas City Citizens Council, Inc.
(4100
E. 119th St – Kansas City MO)
571-10-4064; b: 09-20-11, d: 04-82
Kernodle and his brother, Oliver Paul Kernodle,
operated family business (begun in 1929) which was a 155-acre summer
recreational area in Kansas City, which included two small lakes for fishing, a
lake for boating and a lake for swimming along with concession stands. They
charged daily fees but they excluded blacks.
In August 1966, the Missouri Commission on Human Rights
received a complaint from a Negro Air Force sergeant alleging unlawful
discrimination under MO Public Accommodations Act of 1965. On 5/15/67 the Commission found probable
cause to believe that the allegation was correct and it referred the matter to
its conciliation department but that effort failed.
At a 10/67 hearing, Jim Kernodle
testified that the South Kansas City Recreation Club was a “private club” and they claimed exemption
from the law. On 7/3/68 the Commission
issued an order for the “club” to cease and desist from its unlawful practices
and it found that it was not a private club but “a sham
organization, formed to exclude from its recreational area all persons of the
Negro race.”
A Kansas
City Star article quotes the Commission report: “…it is crystal clear that the purposes of
forming the club and its official policy is to exclude members of the Negro
race from the facilities of the recreation park and to make it available only
to white persons…this club was merely a sham organization formed to circumvent
the provisions of the public accommodations law.”
In 1969 the Commission again reviewed
the situation and found that blacks were still excluded. In 4/70 a hearing was held in County Circuit
Court on petition by Commission for the court to enforce its order. The judge ordered the Kernoldes to stop
discriminating. In 5/70 the Kernodles
claimed that their club had leased its land to Citizens Councils, Inc and James
was employed as a Manager. In 9/70 the
Missouri AG petitioned the Circuit Court to hold the Kernodles in contempt for
failure to obey the court’s 4/70 order.
Kernodle
was a John Birch Society section leader and also leader of local Wallace For
President campaign in 1968 (per Kansas City Star, 6/13/69, “Lake Still Off Limits to Negroes”).
1958 = Jim and brother formed Kernodle’s
Park Inc.
1964 = South Kansas City Recreation Club
formed
01/64 = Incorporator of Association For
Freedom of Choice, Inc.
1965 = delegate to the Congress of
Conservatives Convention held in Chicago and he was an official of the American
Conservative Party.
07/68 = Kernodle’s Country Club formed
after unsuccessful challenge of Missouri Commission on Human Rights order to
cease discrimination
1969 = Kerndole was first President,
Kansas City Citizens Council
04/70 = Judge Harry E. Hall ordered the
officers of the Kernodle corporation to stop discriminating against Negroes.
5/70 = Kernodle’s Park Inc leased the
land to Kansas City Citizen’s Council, Inc.
11/2/70 = Jim Kernodle testified that
upon receiving Judge Hall’s order, the country club corporation closed the park
and disbanded.
